Certificate of value



W. M. ANDRUS.

CERTIFICATE 0F VALUE. APPLICATION FILED MAY 19. ilg.

1,359,947, Patented Nov. 23, 1920.

UNiT-o STATES WILLIAM M. ANDRUS, or ALLsToN, MASSACHUSETTS.

CERTIFICATE OF VALUE.

specification of Letters Patent. Patented NOV, 23, 1920,

Application filed May 19, 1919. Serial No. 298,114. l

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM M. ANDRUS, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Allston, county of Suolk, and State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improvement in Certificates of Value, of which the following description, in connection with the accompanying drawings, is a specification, like characters von the drawings repre-- senting like parts.`

This invention relates to certificates of value and more particularly to banknotes, treasury certificates and the like which circulate generally as currency. The object of the invention is to provide a certificate which can be more readily and conveniently handled in the ordinary course of business, thereby effecting a great economy of time, and one-which will be comparatively diflicult to tamper with.

As an example of my invention I have here illustrated in a more or less diagrammatic manner a Federal Reserve note for one dollar, and in the drawings:

Figure 1 represents one face of this note; and

F ig. 2 is the opposite face, the note being turned end for end as indicated by the letters A, B, C, D, on the corners.

The certificate, or note Ias I will for convenience call it, is of the usual rectangular form and the opposite faces are duplicates so that it is limmaterial which side of the note is uppermost, it being equally easy to read either side. The turning over of the note in any way for purposes of inspection, particularly when counting a kbundle of notes, is thus obviated and much time is therefore saved.

Referring to Fig. l, each face of the note i embodies two portions located upon opposite sides of a diagonal, the diagonal line AC being conveniently marked on the note as a part of the design. this diagonal are suitable inscriptions which are substantially duplicates, but which are relatively reversely arranged so that if the note is viewed as in Fig. 1, one of the inscriptions is right side up and ready for reading, this preferably being the right hand half of the note, while the other is upside down when the note is viewed in this manner, but on the contrary` is right side up 1f the note is reversed. hus, in whichever way the nete happens to be picked up or held, the ecmpleteinserption will be pre On opposite sides of sented to the view in proper reading position. This effects a saving of fully one half the time now expended by tellers in counting and turning over and around the notes which are received for deposit and by all others who have occasion to handle numbers of notes. Reading of the notes is also facilitated by the diagonal arrangement, since if a bundle of notes isi-held in one hand by the lower left hand corner and the notes turned by the right hand,'substantially `the PATENT oFFlcE.

whole inscription in vthe triangle ABC .willv I be clearly shown by the normal folding back of the corner B. n

Each of the four inscriptions on thefour triangular 'fields on the two faces of the note may embody the usual validating matter, such as the'serial number 3 and-seal Herein I havel also shownv theusual promise to pay 7 and iigures-denoting the denomination of the. note. In the present instance, on each side of the bill at one end, the left hand end in Fig. 1, is a large figure marked with the reference numeral 9, eX-

tending practically over the entire end of ,Y

the triangular field ACD, whereas the opposite end has two small figures, here marked 1l, located in a similar position. This serves to prevent raising of anote of low value by pasting overthe gures with figures cut from a note of higher value, the other part of which will then be presented for redemption, since the smaller figures will not cover over the larger.

Conveniently a certain part of the design or. inscription' is organized on an oblique line about the diagonal dividing the two substantiallylduplic'ate inscriptions on the face of the note. Herein I have indicated the redemption clause as being printed in thismanner and the diagonal feature may conveniently be emphasized by a frame around this matter. It is a practice at the present time to take a number of notes and divide them lengthwise into narrow strips and then assemble these strips in such a way that one extra note is formed, each of the newv notes being somewhat narrower than it should be and each of the old notes contributing a little to the new creation. VOf course, in the notes thus reconstructed the designs -do not exactly match but when the work is cleverly done the differences are not readily noticed. In the present note, howdivision. The fact that the obliquely organized matter, and in particular the heavily marked diagonal itself, would be broken and the parts out of alinement would be most readily noticed and cause the changed 4notes, to be instantly rejected. An attempt. `to divide the note parallel to the diagonal Ylines in the upper left hand corner of Fig.

l where it willrbe Seen that the mark 13 in full lines adjacent the corner A in Fig. 1 and the mark in full lines adjacent the corner A in Fig. 2 appear as a cross at the diagonal. In the process of reconstructing a number of notes to make an extra one, it is obvious that this marking would be deI stroyed'in some instance or the parts of opposite sides thrown out of alinement. This marking therefore furnishes a means to prevent tampering as well as a means of detecting counterfeiting. i

Preferably, as shown, one face of the note is divided along the diagonal AC and the opposite face along the diagonal BD. yThis not only provides a greater number of checks of the type already described but insures that the triangular fields wherein the `writing is right side up will be presented with their bases to the right hand, no matter in what way the note is turned and that this field on which the writing is right side up as regards the observer is on the upper side. This, of course, facilitates the handling and reading of the notes and resultsV ina great saving of time. Since the note is divided diagonally, it is not possible to impose on ignorant` persons by cutting apart the duplicate fields of the note since the resulting pieces would not be of the customary rectangular form andV furthermore, if

the diagonals on opposite faces were oppositely inclined, as here shown, one face would necessarily appear incomplete and mutilated.

The complete series of notes are of the same general i design, but I prefer to make the figures indicating value of progressively smaller size as the value of the note increases, as this will prevent the use of figures cut from the notes of higher value to raise the notes of lower value, for they will not cover the same over.

I-Iaving thus described the illustrative embodiment of my invention here shown and described as an example, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent I shall express in the following claims :-V

l. A certificate of value having its face divided by a diagonal line into two fields, each field having a complete self-sufiicient inscription, the two inscriptions being du- A.plicate but relatively reversely positioned. Y 2. A certificate of value having four fields y:bearing substantially similar identifying inscriptions, two Ifields on one face being on opposite sides of one diagonal and two on the other face on opposite sides of the other diagonal, the inscriptions on each face being name to this specification.

. WILLIAM M.`ANDRUS. 

